


Godsend

by NoxianTaco



Category: League of Legends
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-20
Updated: 2015-08-20
Packaged: 2018-04-16 06:05:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4614033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoxianTaco/pseuds/NoxianTaco
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A magical missile leaves Darius half-dead on enemy lines. He wakes up in a Demacian hospital, saved by his sworn enemy, with wounds that leave him only weeks to live. </p><p>Garen has no reason to sympathize with him, no motive, other than the inexplicable goodness of his heart. As painful as it is to be forsaken by Noxus, it is more painful still to be forgiven. And there is no time left to recompense.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Godsend

**Author's Note:**

> Shoutout to ProdigalEzplorer for the pre-read. <3
> 
> Also, I apologize beforehand. I have no excuse for this monstrosity.

It had been a long time since I’d seen any evidence of a thing like compassion existing in the world. That’s why, when he found me half-dead beside the river with one crushed lung and an all-but-amputated right arm, I was surprised to see him plant his sword in the dirt beside me instead of directly through my heart, and splint the broken bone instead of stomping on it. I had been gasping and bleeding for long enough that I was only partially conscious. I remember thinking that it must have been a dream - a subconscious fabrication meant to save my mind from the intolerably gruesome reality. I thought I was being tortured, and couldn’t feel it at all.

I woke up in a bronze-walled room with magical cuffs binding my limbs to the operating table. The pain in my right arm led me to the conclusion that I was not in heaven. The light colors and pleasant fragrance told me that I was not in Noxus. The bindings reminded me that since I was not in Noxus, I was in a place where I didn’t belong.

The room was empty aside for the table I rested on and a counter with medical equipment to the side. Built into the ceiling was a circular fixture, like a sun, emitting a dim white light, and lining the walls were elegant torches burning gold and blue. Nurses periodically passed by the open doorway, but most were too hurried to acknowledge me, until a man in Demacian military garb met my gaze, paused for a second, and walked onward with a heavy gait.

I heard him speaking somewhere down the hallway, his tone incredulous. “Is that the Noxian general?”

“That is correct,” answered another male, whose voice I had heard before. How could I forget, after all the times it had called their wretched soldiers upon us?

“Why is he in our hospital and not rotting in the dirt where he belongs?”

“He was shot down by a missile. Helpless. Every warrior deserves the opportunity to die in combat, and he was robbed of it.”

“He’s a Noxian. With all due respect, Captain, how could you possibly consider him human?”

“His heart beats the same as mine, and yours. I checked it myself.”

“But sir-”

“Back to your post, soldier. You aren’t wounded, so make room for those who are.”

“Y…Yes sir.”

When the nurse arrived, she placed a hand over my heart to check my pulse, and proceeded to wipe down my right arm with a strange-smelling cloth. Her robe had the wing of Demacia embroidered white on blue.

I tried to raise my head and observe the damage that had been done, but there was none, besides the horrid scarring stretched from shoulder to bicep. It looked as though the flesh had been seared off, reconstructed, and plastered back on. It was red and ribbed and gruesome. If this was the best they could do even with magic, then I couldn’t imagine how bad it must have been when it had happened, how much bone had been exposed, how much skin and muscle burned to blood and ash.

“Where is he?” I asked, angry because I was alive, because I had heard his voice and remembered who saved me.

“Who?”

“Who else?”

She stared at me, big eyes blinking as though she had only just noticed who I was. Then she left through the open doorway. I laid my head back and thought about what the Grand General would say if I returned alive from a Demacian hospital without massacring it first.

A minute later, the Captain of the Dauntless Vanguard was there, tall and proud with armor gleaming despite its countless chinks. At first he didn’t move beyond the doorway. Then he stepped tentatively forward and sat down in the chair on the side of the room.

I waited for him to say something. He waited for me, and won.

“You should have left me to die.”

“The shrapnel in your chest was imbued with dark magic. You _will_ die. It’s a matter of weeks.”

He said it as though it meant nothing, which made it feel like it meant nothing, at least for the second or so before I realized exactly what it was he had said.

I didn’t fear death, but I hated that I had to die so cheaply - not even by an enchanted missile but by the miniscule shards of magic it had left behind. I didn’t want to die without taking a nation down with me.

The cry that escaped me was one of rage more than anything else.

“Fight me now,” I demanded, fighting fruitlessly against my bonds.

“You can’t fight in that condition.”

“The hell I can’t!”

“The magic weakens you. Your pain will get worse over time, especially if you exert yourself.”

“Like I care about that,” I spat.

He spoke as though he hadn’t heard me, his tone somehow sympathetic and disparaging all at once. “The missile came from your side. It must have been a misfire. Your nation left you for dead.”

“I hope they left your army in pieces.”

A smile came upon his lips, but in his eyes was a bitter sadness. For a second I thought of _him_ as human, as a husband or brother who was risking his life on the battlefield each day despite what he would leave behind if he fell.

Just as quickly, the feeling passed. Family could not get in the way of duty. Family, in comparison, meant nothing. It was a hindrance to be forsaken by the strong.

“They left many of us in pieces,” he said. “But the spirit of justice lives on.”

I wanted to laugh. What they called justice, I rightly recognized as tyranny. Anyone who didn’t fit the sickly sweet Demacian mold was labeled malignant and sent to the chopping board. There was no such thing as freedom in Demacia.

I wanted to laugh, but all he got from me was a haughty chuckle before I lapsed into silence.

“Why did you call me here?” he asked.

But I had already told him why. I hated him for saving me. He wasn’t worth the breath to repeat myself, so I stared at the ceiling and said nothing.

“Soon you’ll be transferred to the dungeons. I can’t guarantee that you’ll see the light of day before you die, but I’ll try my best to convince them to allow it.”

He stood and left.

I couldn’t measure how much time had passed before they came for me, since the blue torches never brightened or dimmed. I slept once, but it could have been for ten minutes or ten hours. If I had to take a guess, I would have said somewhere in-between.

Four soldiers, one mage, and two nurses. The mage waved his hands over the glowing bands binding my ankles and wrists to the table, dematerializing them. In the split second of freedom that I had, I managed to overpower the other hands holding me down and punch one of the soldiers in the face. Just as quickly, my wrists were bound behind my back. I bashed my head into the same soldier’s forehead, since he wasn’t wearing a helmet, and sent him reeling backwards into the wall.

“Contain him!”

At that point I felt agony pierce my chest, and I couldn’t move let alone fight. The mage’s eyes were glowing. I guessed that he knew how to control the magical shrapnel, since it felt like so many white-hot shards searing my insides, cutting millimeters closer to my heart. I retched in pain.

They pulled me off the table and marched me down the hallway, two guards in front and two behind, holding my arms although they were bound. The soldier I had injured gripped especially tight, as though doing so was supposed to hurt me, but that brought me more personal satisfaction than it did pain. The slight pinch was a feather’s touch compared to the work of the magic that seized my chest.

The hospital must have had an entrance to the dungeons, because we marched straight down the hall, descended a stairwell, and I was shoved into a cell, where the pain finally stopped. I hardly had the chance to realize we were in a dungeon before the bars closed and locked, since it was so different from my regular perception of a dungeon. Clean, lit, well guarded, and they didn’t even chain me to the wall.

The biggest difference between this dungeon and the dungeons of Noxus was the silence. Back home, the torturers were always at work. Their victims’ wails reverberated in such a way that you couldn’t tell if they were fresh or if they were ghostly echoes from days, months, years past.

It was strange not to feel fear behind the bars of a dungeon cell. As part of military training I had been forced to spend a week as a prisoner of Noxus, torture treatment included. This was paradise compared to that.

My escorts began to walk away.

“Black magic,” I said, stopping the mage in his tracks, although the rest of them walked on. “I thought it was outlawed in Demacia.”

“A few of us in House Vayne are given special privileges.”

“House Vayne was massacred by black magic.”

“The Demacian Council came up with that story to hide our practices, since they are apparently incompatible with the national image.”

“Incredible,” I replied. The things people were willing to tell you when your life had a time limit.

“The Night Hunter’s supposed cause is a nice touch to the story, isn’t it?”

“One more thing, out of curiosity,” I interjected, before he could leave. “Do you have the ability to remove the shrapnel?”

“No. It’s impossible to remove once it’s met with human flesh. There’s no way for anyone to save you.”

I had thought that knowing for certain would give me some form of closure, but it didn’t, because I couldn’t be sure that he was telling the truth.

I placed my left hand over my heart. The knots of skin where the shards had entered were hot to the touch, and they probably would be until the moment I stopped breathing.

My right hand wouldn’t move on command, at least not the way it used to. It felt like a separate entity from the rest of my body, which would respond to signals but not accurately, and instead of feeling my arm move I felt an intense tingling in my shoulder. The sensation was so unpleasant that I didn’t want to bother trying to move it at all, not because it was painful, but because it felt nauseatingly wrong.

Maybe it was better that I die, since I couldn’t wield my axe again like this.

I sat down in the back of the cell and tried not to think about anything, but the coldness of the walls against my skin served as a constant reminder of my mortality. 

* * *

I woke to the creak of my cell door opening. Four people filed in and locked it behind them. Two guards, a man in Ionian robes, and the Captain of the Vanguard. They brought a chair in with them and set it in the center of the cell.

“Come here,” Garen said.

“What is this, an interrogation?”

“Bring him here.”

The guards responded immediately, but I got up by myself before they could grab me, because I wasn’t in the mood to be manhandled. I sat down and they bound my hands behind the chair. There were no torture instruments present, though I wouldn’t have told them anything even if there were.

The Ionian pressed his palm against my forehead and I felt something like an electric shock travel through the network of nerves on my scalp. The tingling sensation continued after the first wave, but with less intensity.

“Where is the Noxian army marching?” Garen asked.

“Southeastward, towards Mogron Pass,” the Ionian said, before I had the chance to say anything. “They hope to hide out there while the Demacian army passes, and then conduct a surprise flank attack.”

He was reading the thoughts straight out of my head. At worst, they could mean the downfall of Noxus, all because I had been too vain to think of a way to kill myself in the past several hours. Torture, I could have handled. I hadn’t expected a cheap trick like this; I hadn’t even expected it to be possible.

“Any side units?”

“A unit of twenty is heading towards-”

I stood up, still attached to the chair, and whirled around, another electric jolt shooting through my head as the Ionian’s hand broke contact. I reeled towards the wall and started to bash my head into it with as much force as I could muster.

“Stop him!” Garen shouted, understanding instantly that I would rather kill myself than betray Noxus.

I was on the floor but I couldn’t remember how I had gotten there, warm blood trickling from my forehead down the sides of my nose. The guards were on top of me, and I was still attached to the chair, my arms smashed painfully beneath my own weight. I must have lost consciousness for a couple of seconds, but it wasn’t enough. I was still alive; my brain still had the information.

The Ionian knelt beside me and made contact again, ignoring the wound, which seared at his touch.

“Side units,” Garen repeated.

“The unit of twenty is taking a side route to Laincost, an outlying Demacian town.”

I had to think about something else. Anything else.

“There they hope to find Ranna Divindrael of the Demacian Council.”

It wasn’t working. I had to try harder. The thought had to be stronger.

“How do you know Ranna’s whereabouts?” Garen asked.

The Ionian remained silent.

“Is something wrong?”

“He’s blocking his thoughts with a memory.”

“What memory?”

“I see… a house. The view through a crack, from some hiding place. There’s blood everywhere, and the body of a man on the floor. A woman being murdered. The attackers took everything of value and are lighting the house on fire. One just drove a knife through her throat.” He paused to look at Garen, who was watching him now with intensity. “They were his parents. Killed right in front of his eyes. He was very young.”

I was sweating as though I had woken from a nightmare.

I met Garen’s eyes. In mine he must have seen shame, and hatred. His, I couldn’t interpret. He looked the same as he did on the battlefield, except with his mouth closed. Calm mind, full control. In that respect, he was a better soldier than I was.

I fought with constant anger. Anger for everything that had ever happened to me. Anger for what I lacked. Anger for what I _had,_ because what was the point of having it? Swain had always told me war, and for the sake of having a reason, I believed him.

“That’s enough,” Garen said, and the Ionian pulled his hand away from my head, slick and red with blood. “We’ll try again later.”

They pulled the chair upright, untied me, and left. Several minutes later, a guard slid an ample tray of food into my cell. Unappetizing, but ample.

It occurred to me that I could have chosen right then and there to bash my head into the wall until I lost consciousness and hopefully bled to death. Garen must have known that. He never gave the command to chain me up in such a way that I couldn’t.

This wasn’t a dungeon; it was practically a guest bedroom dressed up as one. Yet every hour I watched criminals and even captured Noxians being escorted past my cell in chains. Sometimes I heard prisoners shouting or crying, but never out of physical pain.

Here, in the cellars beneath Demacia, I had a reason to stay alive. A selfish curiosity.

Six meals later - they still hadn’t come for a second interrogation - a hot tightness seized my chest. When my heart beat, the pulse rippled painfully throughout my entire body, and for a moment the blood in my veins felt heated to boiling. I waited with my head bowed and my fists clenched, thinking that the pressure would fade, but it didn’t.

There was a clamp made of dark magic wrapped around my heart. It would squeeze tighter every day until I died.

* * *

 The next time I heard my cell door open, I didn’t bother to look. I was lying on my back, eyes closed, gripping my chest tightly enough to leave half-moon marks. Thirty-one meals, if I had counted correctly.

He didn’t ask me to get up. Instead, he knelt beside me and asked, “How do you feel?”

“Like I’m getting shot in the back every time I breathe.”

“Would you like to sleep in a bed tonight?”

“It doesn’t matter if I _want_ to,” I said, but even as I did, I doubted my own cynicism. There was more meaning in his voice than sick irony. It was possible he wasn’t just making this up to make me feel worse.

“Come with me,” he said, standing up and holding his hand out.

I reached upwards and expected the hand to pull away, to hear him laugh. He didn’t. He helped me onto my feet and offered me a cloak. “I’m not going to bother cuffing you because you can hardly move as it is. However, I will not hesitate to kill you on the spot if you try anything. Is that understood?”

Answering would be offering my obedience to a Demacian. Whether he interpreted my silence as a yes or no, he pulled my hood up and led me out of my cell, out of the dungeons, and onto the streets of the city.

Nobody spared a glance at the barefoot prisoner being herded along - not with my face hidden. Adults walked on with their heads held high. Children laughed as they chased each other in front of me. I expected a derelict to pop out of the nearest alley and snatch one up, knife in hand, or for one of the children to slip a hand in the other’s pocket and make a run for it.

But there were no alleys here. All the buildings were wall-to-wall. Any passages between them were wide walkways paved in ivory stone, with grand, floral archways overhead. The children tapped each other with smiles on their faces, and switched off roles in a game of tag.

We approached a house with great columns on either side of a tall black door, windows on the upper story, vines creeping down ivory walls. In this district of the city, the grand homes had some space between them, but it was occupied by gardens and hedgerows. Perhaps this was where the rich families of the Demacian Council lived.

No Noxian had ever been exposed to this much opportunity, but my right arm hung limp at my side, and my chest burned with an enervating fire that poisoned my entire body. The only thing I was physically capable of was to follow the Captain inside and listen as he introduced the rooms.

“Through this doorway is the dining room. Opposite, the living room. My sister and I each have rooms down the hall. If you can make it up the stairs, you’ll stay in the guest room up there,” he explained, gesturing towards each location. The place was bright and homely, despite its luxurious exterior. The doorways to each common area were open, and furnished with wooden tables and chairs, patterned rugs, portraits of family members, and warm, modest lighting fixtures rather than the chandeliers I was sure they could afford. It was not at all what I expected it be.

He took my arm and went to the stairs. No fear, no disgust. Each step vibrated through my limbs and racked my heart, but was made possible by his assistance. Perhaps that was why he wanted me on the top floor - so that if I tried to leave, I would fall to my death.

He opened the door and there was a four-poster bed with maroon sheets, a wardrobe, and a window which looked out over the city and the plains beyond. My axe rested against the wall in the corner, marred where the shrapnel had hit it. He must have requested at least temporary possession of it. I would have been surprised if the Demacian Council didn’t hang it up somewhere as a trophy.

He followed my gaze, and said, “Try to pick it up.”

Force of habit made me think I could, but my muscles were weakened by the magic as well as the week or so I had spent rotting away underground. I kept trying anyways, only to collapse against the wall a half minute later, out of breath, letting it fall with a floor-shaking clunk beside me.

He walked over and lifted the handle so it was leaning against the wall once more. “I thought as much,” he said, his voice free, once more, of derision. I couldn’t understand why he wasn’t mocking me, why he wasn’t lifting the axe himself just to show me what I had lost and he still had.

“How long did you have to train to wield that?” he asked.

“By the time my rank was high enough to move beyond standard-issue weapons, I had already trained enough.”

“I took it out to the training yard and tried to swing it. I could, but not like you. The weight distribution is impossible.”

I looked over at him, eyes narrowed in a questioning manner that must have come off as scornful.

“I’ll come back when dinner’s ready. There are clean clothes in the wardrobe that should fit you. Washroom is the last door down the hall.” He began to leave, but stopped in the doorway and looked back at me with the hint of a smile. “Try not to kill yourself.”

I couldn’t fathom his attitude towards me. As though I were a friend he could crack jokes with, not an enemy with hundreds of his soldiers’ blood on my hands.

I sat there for awhile, staring angrily at the wonder of steel that almost my entire life had revolved around. It was like he had said in the hallway at the hospital: I was a warrior. I was meant to die in battle, not to watch my strength deteriorate until I had nothing left. Not even Noxus. I had thought I was glad that they left me there; no use wasting resources on a dead man. I had thought that I accepted my fate.

Which was why I couldn’t understand when my eyes started burning, and a sob choked up my throat for the first time in thirty years.

* * *

 They served roast pig and soup, which was an enormous step up from the dungeon gunk, but I didn’t have the appetite for it. These clothes made my skin itch, though they had been made from the highest-quality material. The silverware felt heavy and toxic in my hands.

I was a traitor for accepting this kind of treatment.

The girl across the table fidgeted in her chair, appearing just as uncomfortable as I was. She was almost as famous as her brother; she had infiltrated the Noxian High Command and lost them Ionia, all those years ago. While she cut the pork into smaller and smaller pieces on her plate, Garen happily gorged himself.

He didn’t seem to notice the uncomfortable table dynamic until he’d been through a full plate and a half, when he wiped his mouth and asked, “Is it unsatisfactory?”

“I’ve got a pain in my side,” I answered, sardonically.

“I’ll be sure to tell the chef,” he shot back after a pause, matching my humor.

I got the feeling that Lux wanted to say something to me, something bitter and degrading, but she continued staring down at her plate.

“Does the Council know about this?” I asked.

“No, but the guardsmen do. They’ve agreed to keep a secret.”

He clearly knew that I had the power to run outside, declare my identity, and ruin his reputation even if I did lose my life in the process. The Crownguard family would forever lose their credit and influence. All because he had trusted me.

“The only reason I haven’t told them is because I know they wouldn’t allow it,” he added, as though it made his actions any more valid. His own sister didn’t even seem to understand what he was doing. Neither did I.

“What about your parents?” I asked.

There was a lengthy pause, a sudden stillness in the air that informed the answer to that question a split second before Garen elucified with words.

“They’re dead. Killed by Freljordians when they went there to negotiate a trade deal. The report claims it was an accident, but I know better. Our parents were responsible for the decision to turn away Freljordian refugees during Noxus’ Barbarian Pacification Campaigns.”

Those campaigns had taken place before I was born. For people to still be bitter about that, the Crownguards must have made their visit not long afterwards.

I remembered the pictures in the living room and realized that all of them were single portraits. Reminders of people these two had never really known. They had been raised by someone other than their parents.

Maybe this was why Garen never came back to interrogate me a second time, and why he was treating me this way now. He and I had something in common.

An intense pain seized my gut, and I doubled over, gripping the edge of the table. Garen was at my side in seconds. He didn’t ask what was wrong. We both knew.

“I need to lay down,” I said. He helped me up the stairs and asked me if I wanted him to stay.

I didn’t. I spent the night alone in cold sweat and shivers. My body was finally panicking. It kept me in agony as it struggled to fight a losing war.

* * *

 A dozen men were gathered around the table on the top floor of Noxian High Command, including Grand General Swain, who had been feeling especially irascible today. A dozen more stood around them, leaning against walls, waiting patiently as their leaders duked it out. Since the massacre at Mogron Pass, most of the military’s most important members had retreated to Noxus to re-strategize safely.

They were safe from the Demacians, in any case. So far, two knives had been thrown and one finger sliced off. Commander Nojus stood at the end of the table, picking at the bloody bandage that covered his hand.

“We need to attack directly! I won’t have another failed flank, or any sort of surprise attack, for that matter.”

“We should buy time and wait for the new recruits. Rebuild our numbers.”

“If we wait, they’ll keep marching closer, and soon become a threat to Noxus itself. New recruits are just cannon fodder. They can delay the inevitable, but they can’t stop it. Brute force isn’t going to help.”

“Brute force is _Demacia’s_ style,” Nojus spat in agreement.

“Another issue is morale. My soldiers have been sparring like wimps.”

“General Darius’d chop off a few heads and shape ‘em up right quick-”

Another knife buried itself in the table between two fingers.

“Well, we don’t _have_ General Darius, so now it’s _your_ turn to figure out how to win this fucking war.”

The table quickly broke out into multiple consecutive arguments, one knife fight, and a floor brawl. From a chair in the back of the room, Draven chuckled to himself. These ‘discussions’ were getting more and more pointless, along with everything else. He stood up and left the room.

* * *

 I could taste the end on my first waking breath.

The pain was dull now, or perhaps it had been sharp for so long that I had just gotten used to it. My heart throbbed, my hands shook, my vision pulsed, my muscles seized without warning. My throat felt brittle, as though there were only a certain number of breaths I could take before it collapsed in on itself.

I tried to get out of bed, and fell a hundred stories to a stone floor covered in blood.

Again, it was only moments before Garen was by my side. The blood cleared and I saw that I had collapsed on the floor beside the bed. The sound must have alerted him.

We stayed there for awhile, me groaning and drawing short, quick breaths, while he knelt beside me and watched helplessly.

He said, “Do you think you could make it out to the plains?”

“Why?”

“Your spirit lives in the free territory between my nation and yours, where the battles take place. Does it not?”

“Spirit?”

I would have laughed, if I could. There was no such thing. You were either dead or you weren’t.

Finally, I said, “Help me get up.”

He put a cloak on me and half-carried me to the gates of Demacia, where they asked who I was and he replied, “I don’t have time for this.”

They opened the gates. We must have made it about half a mile out before my legs gave in, and I fell to a cushion of yellowed shortgrass. It was warm and windy out here. The morning sun remained low and dim in the sky.

It was ironic that, even with all the pain that I was in, I had never in my life felt so relaxed. I had nothing left to worry about. Not thirst, or hunger, or danger, or war. I found that I was not thinking of Noxus, or of anything else, but of the present moment, because it was all I had left. The person beside me at present was the only person who would ever see me die.

And I wondered if I would have preferred someone else. But everyone thought of me as a warrior, and warriors didn’t die like this. I was thankful it wasn’t someone else.

“Any final requests?” he asked.

“Don’t kill my brother, Draven. He has a long moustache and an ego the size of Valoran. Can’t miss him.”

“If I encounter him on the battlefield, I’ll spare him once. I can’t speak for my soldiers.”

“He’s strong.” I lay my head to the side, feeling the warm grass prickle my cheek. “He’ll be fine.”

“What about you?”

For a moment, I couldn’t understand the question. He couldn’t do anything for me once I was dead. But word would eventually get out that my body was in Demacia. He had a say under what circumstances that word got out.

I didn’t give a shit about that. I only had one other question.

“Why did you save me?”

He turned his head and laughed. He was sitting cross-legged beside me, but for a moment we were inside the hospital again, and he was solemn and I was pissed beyond all belief.

_“You should have left me to die.”_

_“The shrapnel in your chest was imbued with dark magic. You will die. It’s a matter of weeks.”_

Back then I thought I would go out screaming, and alone.

“I saved you because I have poor judgment when it comes to leaving the wounded. I let you live because Noxus never gave you the chance to. It was only one day, but… I hope that it did something for you.”

“I was going to die anyways.” It was becoming more difficult to speak. “What you did for me means nothing then, except maybe your retirement, if the guardsmen tell.”

“I disagree. Call me selfish, but the circumstances of your death would have been on my conscience for the rest of my life.”

“Selfish isn’t the word,” I coughed. “Stupid, maybe.”

“Maybe.”

Another cough yielded blood onto my lips. Suddenly I was drawing for air where there was none. My hand shot out to grab the first thing it could find. The world was turning white at the edges.

“I don’t know why bad things happen to good people, Darius. I don’t know why people hurt instead of helping.”

I couldn’t answer, but I knew why. People became bitter and ugly. They only knew pain, so they only knew how to inflict it. They didn’t realize until someone showed them the grace that humanity was capable of, but by then it was too late.

Too late to give instead of taking away. Too late to find something to live for that didn’t revolve around violence.

Not too late to find out, at least, that things like that existed. Not too late to be forgiven by the last person I ever expected forgiveness from.

I looked up at him, mouth gaping, eyes wide with suffering that I wish I could hide. There was no gratitude in this face, but I thought I saw understanding in his. Calm, quiet sympathy. I shuddered as my heart grew still.

His hand was warm with the glow of heaven. It pulled me upwards until the pain disappeared.


End file.
